


Ordinary

by ameliapondss



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Set after Donna/before The End of Time, Set after the Christmas party in ASiB, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 02:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliapondss/pseuds/ameliapondss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly Hooper has never been anything special. Overshadowed by the great Sherlock Holmes, she has always longed to be something more. It's going to take all of time and space for her to realize just how important she truly is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Crossover time! I don't know why I started this story... I'll see where it ends up. (I promise I don't always use Mumford & Sons lyrics when I write. Their lyrics just happen to be perfect for inspiration haha)
> 
> As the winter winds litter London with lonely hearts  
> Oh the warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms  
> Was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night?  
> For every kiss your beauty trumped my doubt.
> 
> And my head told my heart  
> Let love grow  
> But my heart told my head  
> This time no  
> This time no.
> 
> -Mumford & Sons

_As the winter winds litter London with lonely hearts_   
_Oh the warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms_   
_Was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night?_   
_For every kiss your beauty trumped my doubt._

_And my head told my heart_   
_Let love grow_   
_But my heart told my head_   
_This time no_   
_This time no._

_-Mumford & Sons_

**Chapter 1**

Molly Hooper slowly made her way around the morgue, checking to make sure everything was in perfect condition. Her eyes searched for any flaw: any drawer not closed, any paper out-of-place. Pleased with the state of her workplace, she turned off the lights, fumbled for the keys, and locked the door on her way out. She adjusted the strap of her bag and fixed the scarf around her neck. With a sigh, she climbed up the dark stairs and out into the empty lobby.

The pale moonlight shone through the tiny glass windows high above her head, settling in pools on the black speckled tiles. The shuffle of her red snow boots echoed throughout the building. Molly could hear the faint voices and the hum of machines from the other end of the hospital, and knew the emergency room was still bustling even at such a late hour. She sighed as she pushed the door open, allowing the cold wind to wrap around her in a grateful embrace. There wasn't much company for the winter wind these days, so it welcomed the tiny, warm figure leaving the hospital. There was no one around as she turned down the road.

It was always so empty and cold on late nights like these. Spending her holiday at work wasn't what she had intended, and she wished she could have gone home hours ago. Tonight she had planned to unwrap a box of biscuits, open a bottle of wine, and watch her favourite books under a blanket in her room. But she knew she shouldn't complain. There were many others who worked longer, harsher hours than her. She remembered the emergency room, and knew the E.R. staff was working around the clock, trying their best to fulfill the needs of every person who passed through their doors.

There weren't many people around this hour of the night. The street was empty save for a few drunken revelers. They stumbled down the street, singing Christmas carols loudly to their sloshing mugs of ale. Molly avoided their stare as she hurried down the street in the opposite direction.

"Hey, you over there!" one of the men jeered.

Molly's pace began to quicken. The group started to amble across the road to her side of the street.

"Where'er you off too, sweetheart?" another man yelled after her. "Why don't you pop on over here? I can keep you warm all night long, baby!"

 _Ignore them_ , Molly told herself, disgusted.  _They don't know what they're saying, they're stoned out of their minds._

She continued her brisk walk away from the group. Eventually they gave up, and their figures slowly faded back into the darkness. The bitter wind began to pick up, snapping her scarf across her face and causing strands her hair to dance violently. The street was now empty. The quiet settled in along with the snow that was beginning to fall.

 _Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper_ , he had said.

 _Stupid, stupid Molly_ , she thought.  _Always trying for something you can't get. Always making a fool out of yourself. No wonder he doesn't like you. You're not special, you're not beautiful, you're not a genius. You're just you._

She stopped in her midst.

"Just for once," she mumbled to no one. "Why can't  _I_  be special? Why can't  _I_ be extraordinary? Why can't  _I_  do great things?" She started to feel her anger creep up from deep inside her.

"For one day in my life," her voice started to pick up. "Why can't I be  _special_?!"

The street echoed with her words.  _Special. Special. Special._

Then the words began to change. She closed her eyes and saw the words melt. She watched in horror as they sluggishly reformed.

 _Go away_ , she thought.  _Leave me alone_. They ignored her silent pleas. They crawled down the street, reaching for her, crying to be noticed, pleading to be heard. Her head pounded as she took a step forward.

 _Ordinary_ , they cooed.

One more step.

 _Boring_ , they purred.

The faster she walked, the more the words bombarded her. Flakes of snow settled onto her pink cheeks, melting upon the touch.

_Ugly. Boring. Ordinary. Plain. Stupid. Useless. Waste. Boring. Ordinary._

Molly continued her walk, forcing herself to concentrate on far-off lights, the fading stars, footsteps in the snow. Anything but the words that clawed at her skin. She wouldn't allow herself to cry. She just focused on pushing herself forward. She was one block away from her flat, but she stopped at the corner.

And then, as swiftly as they came, the words were gone. Everything was quiet again. She sighed with relief. The snow began to thicken. To her left was an abandoned alleyway, which she usually avoided. On the day she moved there, she had wanted to explore, and had found a decomposing body lying among the trash. Regardless of her profession, it had managed to give her quite the fright. After that day, she wouldn't allow herself even a glance down the alley.

But tonight, Molly could sense something different. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something flashing. Against her wishes, she turned to face the dark passage. At the end of the alley, she spotted a patch of bright blue. Squinting through the accumulating snow, she could see what looked to be some sort of large box. Unable to curb her curiosity, she started down the alley. As she made her way cautiously towards the structure, she noticed it  _was_  a type of box. It was more of a...booth. She noticed there were words across the top. Straining her eyes, she read the words: **POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX**.  _A police box?_ Her nose wrinkled in confusion.

"Hello?" she asked. Her voice was feeble in comparison to the wails of the wind. "Is anyone there?"

A shuffling noise came from inside the box. Startled, Molly dashed towards it. The noises began to grow in intensity. The closer she got to the box, the clearer the noises became, until she could distinguish speech.  _It sounds like yelling_ , she thought.  _Someone could be hurt, or trapped._

"Are you alright?" she yelled, banging on the side of the booth. Her mind began to race, preparing herself for the worst. The wind began to howl, causing snowflakes to scurry through the air. "Open up!" she pleaded.

She continued to knock harder on the side of the box.  _They must be stuck. I need to get in._ She frantically searched for an entryway. The snow stuck to her eyelashes as she felt the surface of the box. Her hand connected with metal, and her fingers confirmed it was a handle.

_Stupid Molly. You should have seen that earlier._

She fumbled for a grip on the door handle and shivered as her palm closed around its icy surface. "I'm coming in," she warned as she tugged against the handle. "Just give me a mo-"

Right as she pulled the door open, a sudden gust of wind knocked her from the box. She fell helplessly backwards into the street. Gazing up through the thickening snow, she saw the door snap open to reveal a young man standing in the doorway. He was dressed in a worn, brown trench coat, the bottom of it flying in every direction as he gripped the sides of the door.

"Who are you?" Molly found herself asking.

With a smile, he stretched out his hand. Her trembling fingers grazed his palm, searching for something to give her balance. She pulled herself up using the steadiness of his hand.

"Thank you," she mumbled as she felt him guide her inside the box. Her eyes closed as she sighed, the warmth curling around her frigid body. "But really, who are you?" she murmured as everything went black.

She felt a smooth voice against her ear.

"I'm the Doctor," it said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY UPDATED. Thanks for being patient.

Molly's eyes opened. There she lay, tucked neatly underneath her polka-dotted flannel sheets. Light streamed in through the window, and she saw the world beyond covered in a blanket of snow. She groaned and pulled the covers away, ever so slowly. Shivering, she slid her pale feet into her tattered, pink slippers, stretched, and sat up groggily.

 _It's just another day, Molly_ , she thought to herself. _You can do it. Just get up_.

From her angle, the room seemed so empty, so cold. The bed rested on the eastern side of the bedroom, allowing for some welcoming morning sunshine. Next to her bed was a tiny window with a little shelf for flowers. Every spring, Molly had attempted to plant begonias, but it seemed as if they always wilted, curling its parched, brown petals and fading away. She didn't have much success with the walls either: she had never gotten around to painting them, so they were still bland and white, and consistently devoid of any personality or warmth. When she moved in, she contemplated adding some artwork, but shopping always made her uncomfortable, and online shopping felt cumbersome and indecisive. The only object interrupting the dull starkness of the walls was her faded poster of the 1948 London Olympic Game, which always sagged to the left. The bottom right corner had ripped when she was attempting to frame it, so she just stuck it there with tape, which she could see peeking out from behind the edges of the paper.

Then there were the countless piles of books that rested against the same wall. She had never bothered to get a bookshelf, but her system worked just fine. She loved books no matter their location: on the floor, in a shelf, on the table-anywhere. She couldn't get enough of them: the smell of old books, the crisp, impatient feel of a new one, the swish of air that escaped from each page turn.

Molly never worried about dusting them, since she was constantly reading and rereading and reorganising them. She had a corner for fiction novels, separated into mysteries, romance, adventure, and everything in between. There were some cookbooks sprinkled in as well, but considering her past luck in the kitchen, she rarely even glanced at them. Then there was a small collection of biographies, which was adjacent to her dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias, and her variety of medical guides, textbooks, and reference books. Her most treasured book in that area was the one Sherlock had reluctantly purchased for her, at John's request, for her birthday. It was London Street Atlas, A-Z, and she already had a copy, but inside Sherlock had written "To Molly". It was the only thing he had ever given her, and she kept the copy in immaculate condition.

On their own, directly under the London poster, laid her most favourite books. The ones that could barely hold themselves together from the strains of being held and hugged so often. The ones with yellowed pages and cracked spines; with torn pages and missing covers. The ones she couldn't live without.

Then, between the end of the bed and the wall, Molly had arranged a tiny nook with a small blue rug and dozens of pillows and blankets. This was her reading corner: her escape from the endless routines and normalicies of life. It was her ticket to travel the world that never expired. On an especially good day, when she was feeling exceptionally lucky, it allowed her to leave her little corner of her little flat in London, break through her roof and past the sky, and see the stars. She would feel herself continue to rise, passing through planets and galaxies and entire universes, getting so close to the ever-burning stars that her face would boil and her hair burst into flames. It was only then that she felt whole, with the bright fires of a thousand distant suns coursing through her veins and extinguishing her nagging voices, her guilt, and her conscious. There, she felt unreachable. There, Molly Hooper became something she had always longed to be: special.

* * *

While in the shower, Molly thought she could hear voices from the front room.

 _Why does that sound suspiciously like the news_? She thought to herself as she lathered herself in soap.  _Did I leave the TV on last night? Oh, God, not_ again.

Returning to her room, she dressed quickly. She tied her hair up in a neat ponytail, clipped back the strands that escaped the tie, and was just reaching for her phone when she heard a crash from down the hallway. Taken by surprise, she stumbled out of the room, tripping on an ill-placed bobby pin, and skidded down the hallway and into the kitchen. The only sound louder than her scream was the whir of the blender, which was currently mixing what looked like three bananas, two teabags, a spoonful of porridge, and a pickle. On the floor, the remnants of a green mug lay scattered across the tiles. Standing there in a tight blue suit, a tall man with wild brown hair had one hand resting on the blender and one holding what appeared to be some sort of tool, maybe a flashlight or a screwdriver, pointed at the mug.

"Oh, hullo, Molly," he said casually, nodding in her direction. "How'd you sleep?"

Still in shock, Molly couldn't seem to form a proper sentence. Her vocal cords still vibrated and her tongue searched hopelessly for what to say. Her scream slowly evaporated from the room, and all that escaped her mouth was nonsensical rubbish. The cheeky bastard just grinned, as if she was some long-lost friend.

"Did you just drop my favourite mug?" she managed to choke out. _Nice going, Molly. Possible robber-or worse-in your kitchen, and you ask him about a_ mug.

He cringed and shook his head apologetically. "I may have done that, yes, sorry about that, so very sorry, I do have a record for being rather clumsy, Molly Hooper," he stated, his eyes transfixed on the blender, which was starting to smoke.

"I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave, please, or I'll need to call the police," Molly said, somewhat meekly, thrown off by the fact he knew her name. She took a deep breath, crossed her arms, and sighed. "Please." she begged, this time with more conviction.

"Alright, go call them," he said absently, pointing the tool in his hand at the now overflowing blender. The tip turned blue and a strange, high pitched type of buzzing sound filled the air. Suddenly, the blender stopped shaking and spitting the brownish liquid, and with a pop, ceased working.

"And now you've gone and broken my blender?" Molly asked, her pitch rising. "That's it." She ran from the kitchen as the intruder rummaged through her cabinets for a mug that was still intact. He wiggled his fingers in a goodbye, but she didn't look back, grabbing her keys off of their hook and throwing up the front door. She picked up her pace as she widened the distance between her and the strange man shattering mugs and breaking blenders in her kitchen. After three flights of stairs, she reached the exit to her building and burst out into the street. It was still too early and too cold for many people to be out on the street, but a runner in a winter coat jogged past Molly as she attempted to catch her breath. She reached into her pocket for her phone, fingers shaking, and…nothing. Her heart caught in her throat. An image came to mind of her phone still resting on her nightstand in her room.

 _Of all the things to forget when someone breaks into your apartment, Molly_ , she scolded herself.  _You leave your_  phone.

Curling her hands into fists, she started to walk briskly down her street, all the time muttering to herself. She could see each breath in the air as it tumbled around her, and as she trudged through the snow, her eyes watered in the cold and the wind tickled at her ears. To her right was the alleyway, the one she usually was so cautious to avoid. But instead of an empty alley, as usual, there stood some sort of box, about the size and shape of a telephone booth. A large, wooden, blue box. She felt something stir within her as she shuffled towards it. For some reason, it almost seemed familiar. She strained her eyes and read the words printed across the top: **POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX**.

 _Police. I need the police_. Molly hurried towards the booth. She yanked on the door handle, but it was locked.

"Come on!" she yelled. "Please open, please open for me, please." She begged.

Nothing.

"Well, there you go, Molly," she said to herself out loud, defeated. "You can't even open a simple blue box, for goodness sakes. How do you expect to fit in? How do you expect to even associate yourself with anyone, let alone Greg or Jim or John or, or…or Sherlock?" She pounded one on the side of the box, and it echoed and seemed to faintly breathe and groan, but she was too wrapped up in berating herself to notice.

"Everyone you've ever loved has just moved on, and everyone else seems to hate you just the same. Sooner or later, they're all going to leave you…just like that." On "that", Molly snapped her fingers and tears started to form. Then, before she could start to sob, she heard a clicking noise from behind her.

The door to the box had opened. And the inside was huge. It looked like a…control room. She wiped away her stinging tears and sniffed.

 _How is this real?_  She had noticed it was about the same size as a telephone booth, but the room was far too big to fit inside this tiny box.  _Is it an entrance to something? To the building behind it_? Molly kept one hand on the side of the booth and slowly walked around the entire thing. All four sides. It wasn't attached to anything. It was actually bigger on the inside.

She stumbled backwards, her mind racing. Somehow, she was crazy. She just knew it. It was more than the voices. Now it was a problem. Now she was seeing things.

The door to the box remained open. She closed her eyes, pinched herself, and opened them again. Still there.

_It's official. I have officially lost it._

"What are you?" she asked the box.

"It's the TARDIS," a voice behind her answered. "And if I'm not mistaken, I do believe she just opened herself for you."


End file.
